Fbackup Frecover

[Joseph P Condle]

I have just taken over for the person running our HPUX system. I have solaris and tr64 backgroup but no HPUX background.
Here is part of a script
TARGETS="/ /home /usr /var /app /u01 /u02 /u03 /u04 /u05 /u06 /u07"

do
/usr/sbin/fbackup -0i $i
-f /dev/rmt/4mn
status=$?
echo fbackup status = $status >> full
done
When I limit the targets to say / /home /usr the fbackup command does the other partitions.
I am used to using mt fsf 3 to move the volume on the tape I want with vdump. When I read the full backup tape with vrestore it only show the u07 parition.

[Steven E. Protter]

Kind of strange but the / backs up everything.

If you want to limit the scope take off the / (root fs). That says do root and ann subs, as in everything.

SEP

[Joseph P Condle]

I didn't know / backs up everything. If I just want to backup certain partitions in a target list do I list them /home /usr or do I list them home usr?
How can I then read using frestore?
I found the command frecover -rNv -f /dev/rmt/2mn. When I used it on a tape that was supposed to have all my targets it only listed the last one. Is there a good web resource for HPUX or a good book.

[Patrick Wallek]

fbackup will ALWAYS rewind the tape before it starts its backup. So the way the script is working, you are backing up everything, but each successive backup will overwrite the previous one. It doesn't matter that you are using the no-rewind tape device (/dev/rmt/4mn).

Your better option would be to use a graph file with fbackup and include the paths that you want to backup.

Have a look through the fbackup man page for more information on graph files. I believe that there is also an option to fbackup to tell it NOT to cross mount points. Again, the man page should have all the information you need.

[Sanjay_6]

Hi joseph,

You cannot append files to the tape, so if you write /, /home, /usr in different sessions, you'll only see /usr since the 3rd session would have overwritten / & /home.

Here is a comparision of the backup utilities under hp-ux,

http://docs.hp.com/en/5990-8172/ch06s04.html

Check the section "Choosing an HP-UX Backup/Recovery Utility"

Hope this helps.

regds

[Joseph P Condle]

Thanks for the info. This as a new system that I was not part of. Luckily we do backups with Oracle's rman everyday and do backup a particular partition plus it is on disk till the next backup. The problem is our cold or file backup once month has not worked since the beginnng it seems which was March.

[Steven E. Protter]

Consider making a bootable backup of vg00, your boot volume. What you are doing will not allow you to recover from the loss of your boot disk.

See this script:

#!/usr/bin/sh
/opt/ignite/bin/make_tape_recovery -Av -x inc_entire=vg00

SEP

[Joseph P Condle]

Ok here is what I tried. I made a graph file with the following entries.
i /usr
i /var
i /home

I ran the following command
fbackup -0g /usr/local/bin/ktgraph -f /dev/rmt/2m

fbackup(1417): cannot open the dates file /var/adm/fbackupfiles/dates for reading
fbackup(1004): session begins on Wed Dec 29 16:01:02 2004
fbackup(3203): volume 1 has been used 22 time(s)
fbackup(3024): writing volume 1 to the output file /dev/rmt/2mn
fbackup(1102): WARNING: unable to stat file /var/opt/dce/rpc/local/02544/c-0/9863
fbackup(3005): WARNING: file number 58131 was NOT backed up
fbackup(1102): WARNING: unable to stat file /var/spool/sockets/pwgr/client6243
fbackup(1102): WARNING: unable to stat file /var/spool/sockets/pwgr/client6253
fbackup(3005): WARNING: file number 60015 was NOT backed up
fbackup(3005): WARNING: file number 60016 was NOT backed up
fbackup(1030): warnings encountered during backup

when I tried to read the tape with
frecover -rNv -f /dev/rmt/rmn
I go the following
did not find expected file marker
unable to read volume header
not an fbackup volume

and Ideas

[Deoncia Grayson_1]

have you tried just using sam to do your backups and recovery?

[Joseph P Condle]

I intend to try to use SAM tomorrow.

[Bill Hassell]

Using a graph file is the correct way to backup selected directories. As mentioned, fbackup is a commerical-style backup tool and will never allow multiple backups on the same tape. That technique is very detrimental for reliable backups.

The fbackup messages are all normal iincluding the WARNINGS. The missing files are all temporary and were removed while fbackup was running. Once fbackup is finished, check the header:

frecover -V - -f /dev/rmt/2m

Then get a complete list of all the files that were backed up:

frecover -I /var/tmp/myindex -f /dev/rmt/2m

The error message given by frecover indicates that the tape you were reading is not an fbackup volume or it was destroyed by some other command that was directed to write on the tape.